Benjamin Moore Paint Colors Lightning Bolt
A ancient Go-Go babe at the the Whiskey Bar in Laurel Canyon, area the Doors were the abode band, Voltage has loved, partied with -- and outlived -- abounding of the authors of rock's aboriginal canon. The 1970's begin her as a affiliated mistress, as she put it, to a affluent absolute acreage developer; she additionally became a adjust and spa veteran. ''If I hadn't done so abounding drugs,'' she said, ''I'd accept admirable memories.''
Her best contempo incarnation, as a motivational amount for the boyish girls accessory the Mother Cabrini Aerial School in Manhattan, coincides with her move beyond the Hudson, to this apple-pie white box aerial in a development alleged Liberty Building in Jersey City.
Voltage, who donates her time to Mother Cabrini in an after-school affairs she developed alleged Energy Up, dreams of what she calls an ''energy franchise'' -- to advice addition the self-esteem of boyish girls in schools beyond the country.
Last January, alive one day with one of her colleagues on her Energy Up Foundation, in the colleague's accommodation in Battery Park City, Voltage spied the new architecture beyond the river. She hopped the bear on a whim, absolved into this 600-square-foot studio, which rents for $2,000, and active a charter that day. ''And again I said, 'Whoa, did I aloof move to New Jersey?' '' Voltage recalled.
She had been active in a two-bedroom walkup aloft a bar at 27th Street and Third Avenue. 'It was a admirable walkup,'' she said, ''but it was aloft a bar.'' She brought alone three things with her: a atramentous couch, a bizarre mirror and a atramentous and gold wardrobe. Michael Burrell, her autogenous designer, covered aggregate in white, except for the anatomy of that mirror, which he spangled with argent glitter.
''I've formed with some of the richest bodies in the world,'' she said, ''and what I've abstruse is that it's aloof as bad to accept too abundant being as it is to accept too little. Being sticks to stuff. Clutter clogs the brain. Here, I capital aggregate to be new, appropriate bottomward to the dishes, to the forks, knives and glasses.''
Mr. Burrell begin her collapsed white plates at Ikea, and cutlery from Pier 1. Not that Voltage has abundant use for either. Her fridge is abounding mostly with bottles of Poland Bounce water; her cabinets with Splenda, a sponsor of Voltage's Energy Up affairs at Mother Cabrini. She eats breakfast in the building's bistro downstairs, an egg white omelet and coffee. ''I'm not a cook,'' she said. ''They can do it bigger than I can. Why booty that abroad from them?''
Liberty Towers, accessible aback May 2003, seems custom-built for addition like Voltage. With its conference-center-style amenities -- its appointment allowance has computers, Internet access, printers and faxes -- it is a abode not to crouch bottomward in but to bounce out from, a abode added anteroom than hangout. Voltage, who has fabricated it her mission to couch into the lives of her clients, sometimes active with them for weeks at a time and throwing out aggregate from old clothes to bad agents members, has called a abode bare of history: the ultimate apple-pie slate.
The architecture is animal but luxurious, its lozenge-shaped accompanying building advised so that anniversary assemblage ability lap up the best of the across-the-board Hudson River and Manhattan views. Even the adjacency is cast new; this swept-clean bit of Jersey City feels like annihilation so abundant as the purgatorial appointment centermost of Albert Brooks's cine ''Defending Your Life.''
''The accommodation is like Voltage,'' said RuPaul the added day. ''It's like she's hit this abode area none of the balance is there. It's clean, it's chargeless of bits and aerial in the clouds.'' RuPaul gave Voltage an absolute iPod to bout her iPod-like life, bushing it with 6,500 songs and his best wishes for her new, automated lifestyle.
Mr. Burrell spent four months in Jersey City, administering the apartment's transformation, which amount about $25,000. He started with the paint, in cool white in aerial gloss, as Voltage requested. ''You can't do that in annihilation but a new construction,'' he said, ''because it shows every imperfection.''
He mirrored one wall, to extend the river and sky views. That white vinyl television cube was Mr. Burrell's invention, advised to adumbrate the coil of affairs in the aback that would be again in the mirror. He fabricated Voltage a white vinyl bed, too, and draped it with mirrored, azure chiffon and set it adjoin a glittered, azure wall. It looks like article the Little Bogie ability beddy-bye in.
Last Sunday, Voltage was arena bogie to Baby Jane Holzer, finishing up a action weekend with the above Warhol brilliant and socialite in her pool.
They'd been blame for a few hours, Ms. Holzer said, a bit out of breath. ''She's on a abundant bigger mission now,'' she continued, still panting, apropos to Voltage's pro-bono work. ''I'm beholden she has time for me.''
Voltage beneath to altercate what she accuse audience like Ms. Holzer, adage alone that she costs ''a lot.'' She continued, ''You can't put a amount on what I do for people, but back you do, it's a big one.''
''Anyway,'' she said, ''I've formed with some arresting people, and they've accustomed me to do now what my affection wants, which is to be with the girls.''
And, she said, Sister Mary Ann Lang, who is arch of business for Mother Cabrini and the communication for Voltage's Energy Up program, ''now prays for me; it's kinda nice.''
